Hegseth Puts $25B on Iran War as Court Narrows Voting Rights Act

The Pentagon's price tag landed in public for the first time. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified for nearly six hours before the House Armed Services Committee as Operation Epic Fury approached its 60th day. Acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst III disclosed that the operation had cost approximately $25 billion to date, mostly in munitions. Hegseth repeatedly clashed with Democratic lawmakers, calling them "the biggest adversary we face" and accusing them of "handing propaganda to our enemies"; he refused to commit to a withdrawal timeline and criticised "reckless" rhetoric. A separate White House readout said the US naval blockade on Iran could be extended for months, after a Trump-oil-executives meeting hosted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles attending. Global crude breached $119 a barrel intraday; gas prices in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois surged above $4 per gallon, the national average's highest since July 2022, driven also by an outage at BP's Whiting Refinery. Five former US officials, including a former top military lawyer, criticised Pentagon silence on the Minab school strike of February 28, in which 168 people — mostly children — were killed; a preliminary inquiry reported by US media indicated a US Tomahawk likely struck the school.

The Supreme Court reshaped electoral law. In Louisiana v. Callais, a 6-3 conservative majority struck down Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, narrowing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and requiring challenges to prove intentional discrimination. Justice Samuel Alito authored the majority opinion, holding that the Voting Rights Act did not require the district and that the map violated the Constitution. Commentators on both sides read the decision as a substantial weakening of Section 2 and a green light for partisan gerrymandering ahead of the midterms, with Florida, Tennessee and Mississippi positioned to redraw maps. The same court heard oral arguments in a TPS case challenging the administration's termination of Temporary Protected Status for over 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians; conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the government's position that TPS decisions are non-reviewable foreign-policy judgments, while liberal justices raised concerns about racial animus. A ruling is expected by late June or early July.

The political ledger turned sharply against the President. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday showed Trump's approval at 34 percent — the lowest of his current term, down from 36 percent in the prior poll — with only 22 percent approving his handling of the cost of living, down from 25 percent. The poll surveyed 1,014 US adults. The administration's retribution campaign escalated on Tuesday with multiple parallel actions: the DOJ re-indicted former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly threatening the President over a 2025 social-media post arranging seashells to display "86 47"; charged former Fauci adviser David Morens with conspiracy and federal-records-tampering related to COVID-19-origins research; executed 22 search warrants at Somali-owned daycare centres in Minneapolis over alleged fraud; and ordered Disney to file early licence renewals for ABC stations amid a DEI probe and outrage over a Jimmy Kimmel joke about Melania Trump. The DOJ separately filed a memorandum seeking pretrial detention of Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old who pleaded not guilty to attempting to assassinate Trump at the WHCA dinner; the filing included a hotel-room mirror selfie taken about 30 minutes before the attack — Allen had searched live media coverage afterward — and a target list naming officials "from highest-ranking to lowest."

Federal Reserve dynamics added a separate axis of pressure on the executive branch. The Fed held interest rates steady at 3.5-3.75 percent for the third consecutive meeting, with four dissents — the most since October 1992 — revealing deep internal divisions. Three regional bank presidents (Beth Hammack of Cleveland, Neel Kashkari of Minneapolis, Lorie Logan of Dallas) dissented for tightening; one — likely Governor Christopher Waller — dissented for easing. Chair Jerome Powell announced he would remain as a Fed governor after his term as chair ends on May 15, citing concerns about political interference and an ongoing DOJ investigation; the Senate Banking Committee advanced the nomination of Kevin Warsh to replace Powell. Trump's earlier attacks on Powell — including a DOJ criminal investigation over Fed building renovations, since dropped — had been the proximate cause of Powell's decision to stay on the board.

Around the country, the day's other moving parts:

- The Hegseth hearing's same-day Capitol Hill commentary tied directly to the Senate Armed Services Committee's parallel ($185 billion) Golden Dome programme review, which Gen. Michael Guetlein had testified to the day before — Sen. Angus King's stated doubt about feasibility shaped the questioning of Pentagon witnesses on April 29. - Ukraine's $100 million Chornobyl repair pledge — announced the same day — drew bipartisan praise on Capitol Hill but was framed by some Republicans as a quid pro quo for Kyiv's continued cooperation on the rare-earth deal. - The IAEA's Director General Rafael Grossi confirmed Russia remained open to removing Iran's highly enriched uranium, with Trump separately confirming on the record that Putin had offered to be "involved with the enrichment if he can"; a separate IAEA briefing reported roughly 440 pounds of up-to-60-percent enriched uranium remained at Iran's Isfahan facility. - A White House official confirmed the US blockade could extend for months — a structural commitment that contradicts earlier 60-day War Powers calculations and that the Pentagon comptroller's $25 billion price tag will continue to compound.